A typical flashlight is made of a number of individual parts, with the individual components having different service lives. Especially the internal components of flashlights, such as, for example, the contacts and the switch, must be regularly changed because they lose conductivity due to oxidation and contamination, for example, due to battery leakage. To improve exchangeability of the contacts, in particular the contact springs, U.S. Pat. No. 6,880,951, for example, provides for the batteries to be held in a battery cartridge. In the case of dirty contacts or worn-out contact springs, it is then possible to replace the wear-prone parts of the flashlight by simply exchanging the battery cartridge.
As a rule, a high-quality flashlights have a very stable and thus expensive housing, to the end of which an end piece is often attached into which a pressure or push-button switch has been integrated. The flashlight disclosed in above-cited U.S. '951 also has such a push switch attached to its end.
The disadvantage of the prior-art systems is that, when replacing the pushbutton switch, it is necessary to replace part of the high-quality housing as well, which incurs significant costs. Moreover, contact replacement is laborious because they are mounted at locations inside the flashlight housing that are difficult to reach.